Weekly Report - 24 January 2019 (WR-19-03)

COSTA RICA: More good news for Alvarado

Weeks after President Carlos Alvarado trumpeted his first significant legislative victory since taking office in May 2018 – the approval of a tax reform [WR-18-48] – he is again claiming progress. At the start of the year, Security Minister Michael Soto boasted that, for the first time in five years, homicide rates had gone down – to 586 in 2018 from 603 in 2017. While Costa Rica has yet to suffer the notorious levels of crime and violence which afflict its Northern Triangle neighbours (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), addressing security was a major priority for the new government given that 2017 had been a record year of homicides.